There are an infinite number of combinations of price increases and changes in dividend yield. To make the examples more simple I chose to hold the stock price increase to 0%. This is very possible by the way. Look at Microsoft's stock from 2001 through 2012. It didn't really move, yet their dividends increased at a rapid clip.

Dividends are reinvested so there are extra dividends coming in each year due to this. Holding price constant is a simplifying assumption. Users are free to put in any price change they want on the calculators.

As I mentioned before, if the skeptical people out there don't believe that this works, ask your accountant. I promise you he will agree with me that this strategy works great if you have capital losses to use.

Way too many assumptions to try and compare it in a spreadsheet. Out planning tool has been tested by thousands of users at this point. Feel free to give it a try. Signing up for a free trial only takes 30 seconds.

That is a very informative matrix. I wonder if it is looking at companies who raised their dividend by at least x% each and every year or if it is looking at the annualized growth rate of the dividend over selected time periods. It appears to be the former. My analysis looks at the annualized growth rate, so a 5% growth rate in one year can be made up for by a 20% growth rate.